Captive - first time with KF

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

D700
70-200mm f/2.8 VR with Nikon TC-17E II
340mm
ISO 800
f/6.3 at 1/40s
Aperture Priority mode
Matrix Metering
+0.7EV
AF-C, Dynamic 9 points
Auto white balance
handheld
Captive bird

Curve to lighten a bit, crop, NR and sharpen.

Always wanted to take a picture of King Fisher, so headed off to one of the bird cage where they allow you to walk inside. Even though it was a small area, it took me at least an hour to finally get an opportunity to photograph this guy. The background is very busy and the tail is behind the perch but I was happy to finally photograph this guy. Hope in the future I will get a chance to photograph them in the wild :D

All comments and suggestions are welcome.

[Harold Davis]

that is one neat bird!!! agree the bg is a little busy but nothing you could do.

it has a green color cast. i corrected it and boosted the contrast a bit. never seen the bird. does this look right?

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

It does appear to be green cast in my post, thank you for pointing it out. I need to look up which type of king fisher this is.

After looking in the book, I think this is Stork-billed Kingfisher.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice one, assume you could not move to left to eliminating branch, neat species. harold's repost adds pop to the bird - TFS - never seen this before.

[Alfred Forns]

Neat looking bird and excellent re post !!!

I'm not much for cloning things out but in this case would go to town and really try to work that bg !!! One sweet bird and would be worth it !!! I find shooting in a zoo more difficult and challenging than in many natural settings, did well here !!!

[Lance Peters]

Gorgeous bird - Love kingfishers and can see why you went to the zoo to have a chance to shoot.
Agree with AL - would try to work the BG.
Good eye on the colour cast MR H!!

[Bob Miller]

I like both the original and the repost. Beautiful bird. You certainly captured the feather detail....very sharp!! I agree cleaning up the background would be worth the time....Very nice indeed!

[Harshad Barve]

This is Stork billed KF (Halcyon capensis ) , one of the bigger KF ( 38cm ) we found here , They are widespread resident of India but unrecorded in NW of India and Pakistan. Running streams are their fav places.

Lovely pose and I will go with colors of KF in OP , they look very close to exact
TFS

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Thank you Harshad for the info on the species :)

[Bill Dix]

Spectacular bird, and great repost. Wonderful detail and sharpness. I would agree that while challenging, it might be worth the exercise to try some cloning of the BG; maybe even the tree on the left. Great shot.